Saturday, August 27, 2005

That eternal thing that keeps us up at night

I'm working on one of my freelance writing projects that involved interviewing a number of people working on a musical that's opening on Broadway this fall. The piece will ultimately be read by students, so at the end of each interview, I ask whoever I'm talking with if he or she has any words of advice for young people who are interested in the arts. This is what the director of the show had to say (this is unedited, right off the tape.)

I think the most important thing is to know why. I know that sounds funny. What I have learned, I guess, over the years is that people who stay in theater stay because there’s something about them, something key about them, that can only come alive when they’re working in theater. It’s not about the glamorous things, or whatever. There’s something that is just essential about yourself, and that you want to keep telling stories, and you want to keep making that contact, or you want to keep designing the world of the play -- because you know that you are in your place, you know you are what you’re supposed to be when you’re doing that.

I think most of us, not to get too psychological about it, I think most of us on some level know that eternal thing that keeps us up at night, you know, keeps us awake, keeps us getting up in the morning. Because frankly, it’s not a glamorous business. There are glamorous moments. But in the percentage of the time you spend on a show, they’re very minor. It’s not that. But satisfying your need to connect is why you get up and do it. The rest of it falls in place.

One of the shows that I've written, and have seen through productions both wonderful and disastrous, is about that same idea -- that you have to find that eternal thing -- to find your place, when you know you are what you're supposed to be when you're doing that.

I feel like I've been on a track, this same track, since I was fifteen or sixteen years old. The words of this interview really resonated with me -- it's satisfying a need to connect (a different show of mine contains almost those exact words.)

1 Comments:

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